Pataki denies Indian casino deal close

Wednesday, July 18, 2001 | 11:18 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

ALBANY, N.Y. -- New York Gov. George Pataki said Tuesday talks are continuing between his administration and Mohawk Indians over bringing casino gambling to the Catskills, but he denied that an agreement is imminent.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said he has heard from sources outside the Pataki administration that the governor is close to sealing a deal on a plan to bring casino gambling operated by Mohawks from the St. Regis reservation in northern New York to the once-thriving Catskills. The deal would be similar to one Pataki reached last month for Seneca Indians to operate casinos in Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

The casino would be developed and operated by Park Place Entertainment Corp. of Las Vegas. Park Place has said previously it plans to spend $500 million developing the project, which would include at least 500 hotel rooms, 3,000 gaming devices and 85 table games.

Silver, a Democrat from Manhattan, also said he wants the Legislature to consider Catskills casinos along with the Seneca proposal.

"It'd be a lot smarter to do everything at once," he said Tuesday.

But Pataki, a Republican, said Silver is wrong about the status of talks over casinos in the Catskills and wrong if he is linking the western New York casino proposals with a Catskills proposal.

"We're negotiating as we have been for quite some time, but I don't think it's accurate to say that we're close," Pataki said.

"These negotiations are extremely difficult," the governor said. "I certainly have supported having a casino or two casinos in the Catskills and we'll continue to negotiate and try to reach agreement, but I just don't think it's accurate to say that we're very close to an agreement."

Park Place officials have said previously they believe Pataki's support for the western New York casinos should help their cause.

"I think it's a good thing, because it shows there's precedent for additional Indian casinos in the state of New York," Kim Sinatra, senior vice president and deputy general counsel for Park Place, told the Sun in June. Negotiations with Pataki, she said at the time, were proceeding in good faith and "going along fine."

The St. Regis Mohawks want to open the casino and hotel complex at Kutsher's Country Club in Sullivan County, located about 100 miles northwest of New York City. The tribe has filed an application with the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.

St. Regis tribal spokeswoman Rowena General did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the statements by Silver and Pataki.

Pataki said state compacts with tribes to establish casinos should "stand on their own" and not be grouped with other tribes' plans.

"I don't think you help advance that cause (for casinos in the Catskills) by blocking casinos in western New York," Pataki said.

Meanwhile Tuesday, religious, business, political and labor leaders contended that Pataki's proposal to allow Seneca casinos will bring more problems and costs to western New York than revenue.

The casinos would be a "death knell" to Buffalo, said deputy state Assembly Speaker Arthur Eve.

"No one has addressed the constitutional, legal, moral and economic issues concerning Governor Pataki's proposed casino gambling compact between the state of New York and the Seneca Indian Nation," said the Rev. Duane Motley of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom.

"Having a casino in the city of Buffalo will only makes things worse," said Eve. He said families will fall prey to gambling losses and addiction.